Virgil asked, “What was the first news story you saw?”
“Donald Trump, some new tweet... Obama... Let me see...”
He rolled out an explanation, and Virgil interrupted to ask, “You got Sirius Radio in your car?”
“My car is a 1992 Jeep pickup truck. The fuckin’ steering wheel barely works. You’re askin’ if I got Sirius Radio?”
“Just askin’,” Virgil said. He turned to Pweters and said, “Dunno.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Fitzgerald asked. “Did something happen?”
Pweters looked at Virgil, who stared at Fitzgerald, shrugged, and said, “Somebody shot Margot Moore and killed her. From what you’re telling me, once again, you don’t have an alibi. You were watching TV by yourself.”
Fitzgerald gaped at him, sputtered, “Margot? Somebody shot Margot?”
Virgil rubbed his forehead with his left hand, said, “Oh, boy,” and then, “Fred, I know goddamn well you had something to do with killing Gina Hemming. Sooner or later, I’ll prove it, and you’re looking at thirty years. Since you had something to do with killing Gina, I believe you had something to do with killing Margot. That’s how it is. What I don’t know is exactly what you had to do with it, but I’ll figure it out.”
“Fuck you!” Fitzgerald stepped back and slammed the door. Acouple of seconds later, he opened it again and said, “I didn’t have a fuckin’ thing to do withkillingeither one of them.”
“Whatdidyou do?” Pweters asked. “I’ve known you for a while, and Virgil thinks you killed them or got one of your buds to do it. I personally am willing to believe you didn’t kill them. But you didsomething... I can hear it in your voice.”
“I’m calling my lawyer,” Fitzgerald said. He stepped back and slammed the door again. Two seconds later, he opened it back up again and said, “My lawyer’ll call you in the morning.”
“Who is it?” Pweters asked.
“Don’t know yet,” Fitzgerald said.
Virgil and Pweters glanced at each other, and Virgil said, “Lawyers cost money, Fred. If you don’t have it, I can fix it so that a public defender takes it for free. He’ll be your lawyer, and probably be as good as anyone else you can get. Margot’s murder’s only an hour old, and we’ve got to get on it. Every minute we lose is a problem. If you think you might have something to say to us, I’ll crank up the public defender and get him over here right now.”
Fitzgerald looked between the two cops for a minute, then asked Pweters, “Who’s the public defender?”
“Ann McComber. She’s good.”
“If you can get her to come over, I’ll talk to her,” Fitzgerald said. He edged the door closed. “Tell her to call first...”
He closed the door one last time.
—
Ann McComber wasn’t interested in leaving a date to talk to a tattoo artist until Virgil explained that Margot Moore had been murdered and her prospective client might have something to tell the cops about it.
“All I wanted was a third glass of wine and a little romance,” McComber complained. “But... Fred’s down at his shop?”
“Yeah. He wants you to call. I’ll get your county attorney involved, so if there’s a deal to be made, he can sit in on it,” Virgil said.
“Well, phooey. Okay. I’ll call Fred. I’m not sure I want to go down there by myself, though.”
“If you want, me and Pweters can sit where we can hear you scream. If you scream.”
“Let me call Fred.”
—
Virgil got the county attorney on the phone, a guy named Bret Carlson, who agreed to meet with McComber that night if a deal was necessary. “But not after eleven o’clock.”
Virgil rang off and said to Pweters, “If we can get McComber off her date and Fitzgerald off his dead ass and Carlson before he goes to sleep, we might work something out.”
“McComber’s on a date?”
